Photo by Meilleur Prêt

According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, 80% of government employee hours are now taken up by teleworking, a gigantic increase on pre-pandemic levels. Enabling this has come in three distinct areas of action – workspace planning, hybrid team organization, and improving flexibility – all of which have combined to make federal employment a more positive experience than perhaps ever before. There are other factors to consider, of course – federal employment is not perfect – but the overall picture is a positive one for remote workers.

Providing a workspace

Many Americans did not have the necessary space to work from home, largely due to a lack of equipment. Having only small spaces to work in doesn’t have to mean the space is unproductive; on the contrary, through good decision-making and clear planning, a small office space can be very productive. The government has supported its workers through the same process that private businesses do – by providing furniture tailored to the home working environment. As CNBC highlights, businesses have been able to claim deductibles from providing home working equipment such as desks and chairs – and government workers have benefited here, too.

There is strong reasoning behind the government’s willingness to provide these benefits. According to the Chicago Booth Review, the majority of remote workers have become more productive by working from their own home. Providing the psychological safety and basis to challenge in-office working routines enables workers to find their own rhythm and routine, and to contribute to better outcomes.

Focusing on the remote

Remote working isn’t just as simple as providing an outside connection that workers can utilize out of government estates. It requires careful planning and consideration with regard to meetings and other communications, and rigorous safeguards for sensitive workstreams and networks. According to SHRM, the government has focused on changing that through creating new hybrid team models, and focusing on key areas of pain from employees to tackle the most pressing issues first. Properly structured remote working requires new standards that didn’t really exist in the office previously – it’s not as simple as using old methods of meeting, working and collaborating, and applying them remotely. Rituals as simple as the morning 10-minute meeting have to be restructured for the remote working age, and it’s clear that communication is absolutely the most important part of this.

Indeed, embracing modern ways of communicating is one of the single most important things that employers can do. One study analyzed by Phys.org highlights how the two areas in which most companies suffer from remote working is collaboration and communication. In certain agencies, these are often the biggest problems without bringing in remote working – the expedient demands of government work often mean improvement can be slow. Ensuring that all employees are on board and confident with the full range of modern communication tools is, therefore, essential, and government employers will provide this. The software and communications tools that are put into place to enable hybrid working strategies are the core of this, and success means using high-quality, bespoke platforms, that enable collaboration while retaining employee flexibility between office and home.

Increasing flexibility

The federal government is in direct competition with private business for talent, and planners are well aware of this. To continue improving terms for federal workers, Bloomberg Law reports that agency heads are now being asked to reduce their capacity, and to justify clear any request for greater amounts of in-office occupancy. For workers, this means that they can expect a remote-first working schedule and agencies that are actively promoting this; the environment they will be working in is crucial to retaining them, and the agencies are more than aware of this.

Certain agencies are better than others in this regard. According to NCESC.com, the best agencies for flexible working are NASA, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services and the Treasury. Importantly, however, not all roles can offer flexibility of this type. There is obviously a certain degree of in-office attendance required of certain roles, and especially those that have a significant amount of engagement with high-security computer systems and assets – it’s a technological impossibility to put some security measures into place at home. Bearing that in mind, it’s necessary to look at roles well ahead of time and ask the question as to whether they can provide remote working. National security is one area with less flexibility.